Theory of national development in the age of globalization is an urgent requirement for Vietnamese theoricians forced by reality. Rethinking Vietnamese thought of the begining of the 20th century, including nationalism, which was typically expressed in Phan Boi Chau’s thought is a suggestion for us in constructing theoretical foundations for the theory of national development.

Phan Boi Chau’s thought, especially his nationalism had been being studied from various aspects, such as history, literature, politics, history of thought, etc... However, Phan Boi Chau’s thought on nationalism is still an attractive matter to research more from philosophical view.  

For the author, in this article, philosophy is treated as: “human’s thought  that becomes self-cognition of life, universe and all things, phenomenon, including all categories of religion, art, science, mathematics and logic thinking"(1) -- the self-cognition has systematic character, reflects the most general, universal problems of the world and life, and also has oriented character, that leads to pass over historical challenges

In the history of Vietnamese thought, many thinkers rethought about the Vietnamese’s self-cognition on the life and the universe. In a certain extent, their thoughts had characters of high systematicness, generality, which were applied as basis for practice and thought, were deployed and concretized in spiritual field, and other social activities, so that they were philosophical thought or consisted philosophical characters. In addition, there were also thoughts derived from fundamental cognition in term of philosophy. By applying philosophical conception as mentioned above to survey the thoughts in the history in order to define their philosophical value, character or meaning means to investigate, research these thoughts from a philosophical view.

Before the 20th century, what created Vietnamese philosophical thought were basically the metaphisical principles of the three traditional religions: Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism.  Only at the end of the 19th century, these traditional content had been added by new thoughts from the wave of Western philosophical and literary works imported into Vietnam for the first time; thanks to the repercussion of the Modernist moverment from Japan and China, arose the reforming movement in the history of  thought of the nation. And, at the begining of the 20th century, Vietnamese thought in general, and philosophical thought in particular had a remarkable change, because of the direct and indirect influences from Western culture and reforming movement in Oriental countries. The tendencies of Westernization, which arose under the direct influence of Western culture, leading to the appearance of movement of neo-poetry, romantic and reality critical novel in literature; schools of painting, architecture, sculpture, music, ... in art.  About politics, the Westernization appeared in the tendencies of innovative, modernoist thought towards democracy or rebellion, including safe and slavish ones.

Deeply behind tendencies of politics, literature, art there were philosophical thoughts.  Influences caused by Western philosophies were what had broken the fundamental contents of traditional thought, leading to different tendencies of spiritual life of the Vietnamese in the first half of the 20th century.  The typical example of the change of philosophical thought of Vietnam in this time of the 20th century was Phan Boi Chau’s thought. By researching the philosophical foundation of Phan Boi Chau’s nationalism in two first decades of the 20th century, we should understand more about one fundamental and prominent character of Vietnamese philosophical thought in this period in particular, and in the whole history of Vietnamese philosophy in general – it was the amalgamate on the foundation of patriotism, for which Phan Boi Chau was the most excellent representation. 

In 1924, Nguyen Ai Quoc affirmed that “there is a nationalism in Vietnam". Western researchers, such as George Boudarel, Davit Marr, William Duiker..., while carried out a survey on the history of Vietnam in the first period of the 20th century, also came to the affirmation of the gigantic development of nationalism in Vietnam, and Phan Boi Chau as the first leader.

A doctrine needs not only princile, but also a certain form with five conditions: guideline principle for the whole life, rules that control every thinking, fndamental value to evaluate all activities, knowledge as material for aesthetic, and they are expressed through mechanism, organization, education ...(2).According to that condition, Phan Boi Chau competely expressed himself as an excellent representative. This article does not concentrate in discussing in detail the content of nationalism provided, developed and realized by Phan Boi Chau, but only try to contribute some more ideas about philosophical foundation of the nationalism.

Until now, when evaluating Phan Boi Chau’s thought, we often avoided the terms of “nationalism" and “nationalist" because we were afraid of saying something opposite to proletarian internationalism. However, looking back the history of establishment and development of nationalism of colonial countries in Asia in the early years of the 20th century, we should concede that Vietnam was not a single and particular case, and this movement of colonial countries had great countribution to the change of the world context in its general view.

As an excellent representative of the nationalism in this period, Phan Boi Chau had proved the potential, sharp capapcities of the nation in facing the challenges of the age.  Nationalism of Phan Boi Chau, in a certain aspect, was overcome by the time, because of the shortcomings relating to issues of race, of viollence, of Westernization (follow Japanese model)... However, in the contemporary context of Vietnam and the world, rethinking of his nationalism under new light of modern and progressive conception on culture, especially of its philosophical foundation is still interesting issue with modern meaning. 

Phan Boi Chau did not provided any philosophical concept or definition, but he wrote an essay with the title "Essay on Philosophy" in about 1903-1905.  In this work, he placed the following matters into the field of philosophy: reason for living or die, retribution from deity, the religious,  destiny, Li and Ch’i, theory of liberty, theory of equality, theory of independence, theory of self-strenghtening, issue on saving the country... (3). At a glance over these points, we can realize that his horizon of philosophy was in disorder.

We can say that this was the direct outcome, caused by the first simple combination of external resemblance between Confucian concepts and the Western philosophical ones newly imported into Vietnam, especially through Western literature and philossophical works, and accepted by progressive Confucian’s horizon(4). In other words, philosophical conceptions and concepts of philosophy in Phan Boi Chau’s work were not the logical consequence of process of self-cognition, but only the "importating" and "borrowing" of political and philosophical knowledges from outside. He did not provide any critique to new imported concepts, and only selected them to use according to his own certain Confucian knowledge and for the requirement of national liberation at that time.  In addition, when resolved problems which were treated as philosophical ones, Phan Boi Chau always concentrated on national liberation, the spirit of patriotism, and the love of native people as his systematization for references, that leaded all resolutions tend only to main purpose of patriotic campaign.    This reflected the fact that, in aspect of cognition Phan Boi Chau identified philosophy with politics. For himself, the goal of national independence was the supreme, unique purpose of life of a young man who was born in a time of loosing country.

 Having studied completely all expressions of Phan Boi Chau’s nationalism, we should come to his basic principles as follow: 

1- National independence is the supreme and unique aim.

2- Appreciating any means, trick, policy, strategy, force if they have ability to promote and realize the goal of national independence.

3- More than every thing is nation’s interest and pride.

These three principles were affirmed by Phan Boi Chau: "One’s own life plot just depends on his goal, which even can get at the last moment of his life. However, some times he needs to change the trick or means, even the way"(5).   These three principles also completely controled Phan Boi Chau’s revolutionary activities. They were the system of norms and values which were applied in his literature and poetry for the aim of "encouraging the people’s spirit", education, appealing the people to contribute to the cause of the struggle for national independence.

By comprehending these principles to light up Phan Boi Chau’s revolutionary life, we will completely understand how he should easily refuse his position and fame as a doctoral mandarin to choose a quite hard way for the cause of saving the nation. We also will understand why he could modify the means to organize activities for saving the nation so quickly, and just in time, such as: from seeking Japanese reinforcement to seeking Japanese support for education; from the Organization of the Modernists in 1904 changed to be the Association of Vietnam Restoration in 1912, and again changes to be Vietnamese Nationalist Party in 1924;  from the policy of violence to propagation in order to enhance intelectual stadard of people, to strengthen the people’s spirit, to cultivate talent, and again used the way of riot, assassination, etc...

All these modifications were according to concrete situation, and depended on the real context of the revolution of the native people at home and political changes abroad. Even his policy of seeking Japanese reinforcement was not a unchangeable one. His philosophical argumentation on racial and cultural sameness was based on Mantous’ anthropology, but only with the aim to get the maximum suport from Japanese government for the national struggle initiated by himself.  This argumentation was highly evaluated because of its effective function in seeking reinforcement under the contemporary context, while Japanese government was considered as the single life-saver according to the patriots’ horizon, and in addition, not any sign of a future proletarian government was coming into being. Considering the whole process of Phan Boi Chau’s revolutionary life, we realize that so early he understood the limitation of this policy and the whole situation of Japan, which would make his policy fail completly(6). For example, his cooperation with Chinese political groups, and persuaded them to support Vietnamese revolution, or his early relationship with Russian counsellor – representative of worker and peasant class – in Beijing in 1920, and the agreement of sending the Vietnamese to Russia to study (7)... showed obviously that, for him Japan was not the only one to seek reinforcement. 

Especially, after studying Phan Boi Chau’s writtings, we understand that he considered the internal force and common people’s power was the first(8), and did not wait for external aid.

 Through some prominent points of Phan Boi Chau’s nationalism, we assume that he had transcended the limitation of Confucian horizon, quickly imported general spiritual values of the age, and used them effectively for the aim of national liberation.

Phan Boi Chau’s policy of nationalism was manifested into two fundamental goals: national liberation, and building a new Vietnam.  The model of new Vietnam was concretized in the work "A New Vietnam". His new model of Vietnam was a monarchical- constitutional state with European ideal of the flourishing bourgeoisie about freedom, equality, fraternity (9). Nevertheless, Phan Boi Chau’s thought on these values appeared to be utopian obviously, because he had not yet constructed the most basic conception for sustainable existence and development of the whole system of these values. But, it is possible to understand, because for him the vital and supreme goal was national independence.  Independence must be the first, then building and developing later.  This was the dilemma facing Phan Boi Chau’s age in theoretical field while Vietnam was much influenced by "Western wind and rain".  It needed more time for the spiritual quintessence to infiltrate into national spirit. This spiritual dilemma with an urgent practical demand only could be resolved by younger generation after Phan Boi Chau.

From aspect of modernization to rethink, we understand that the nationalist tendency in Phan Boi Chau was only the concretization, the realization, because it did not yet transcend the reforming tendency in Vietnam in the second half of the 19th century, from a philosophical view. This tendency was similar with Phan Chau Trinh’s one (only different in steps and means) in the idea of modernization, means to identify with Westernization – a popular way of national movements in non-capitalist countries in the begining of the 20th century(10). After all, according to this, is it correct to have remark on the leaders of patriotic movements in the end of the 19th century that  "... our people’s struggle for national independence was turning into the transitional period leaded by feudal- bourgeoized- intellectuals (11) or not? We think that, this remark is reasonable for saying about Phan Boi Chau’s political thought. However, we still want to have more discussion on this point by giving some suggestions about philosophical foundation of Phan Boi Chau’s nationalism.

Before devoted his life to the practical school of national liberation, Phan Boi Chau had equiped himself with a profound and basic knowledge of Confucianism, in which there were philosophical principles of the universe and human. These philosophical principles took it role as a lodestar for Phan Boi Chau’s revolutionary practice, until the end of his life (yet, if there were other influences of Western thought, they were only suplementary ones, but did not change fundamental principles in his thought). This is more obvious, when we study the works in the last period of his life, such as Khong Hoc Dang (The Light of Confucian Studies), Chu Dich Dien Giai (Annotation of the Zhou’s Book of Change).

By studying the deployment of Phan Boi Chau’s thought through issues, including his thought on nationalism, we can abstract them into three fundamental components:

Firstly, Confucian metaphisic principles, in which theory of the Cosmic Trinity of Heaven, Earth and Man (world outlook) is the core.

Secondly, the Confucian conception on human role (human outlook).

Thirdly, Confucian principle of “unchangeable in principle, changeable in concrete application" (method of thinking and practising).

In his world viewpoint, Phan Boi Chau tended to appreciate man’s position in the Cosmic Trinity of Heaven, Earth and Man.

In his human outlook, Phan Boi Chau inherited Confucius’ thought considering man as the source(12), and that of self-improvement, of ideal personality with virtues, such as: "before the wealthy not be crude; with the poor not be humble, facing power not to yield", and his political ideal is: to improve, to manage, to control, to facify.

About method – mode of thinking and practising -- Phan Boi Chau absolutely obeyed the guideline of "unchangeable in principle, changeable in concrete application". In concrete, for him, principle of humanity (rendao) was unchangeable, national independence was unchage too. From that foundation, he readily inherited other conceptions, doctrines, which were not opposite to the principle of humanity (rendao), and helped him to develope more the principle of humanity, and ready to act, to change in suitalbe time, to follow other methods or means, to relate with any un-opposite political groups for the aim of national independence, with any one who had ability to serve for the aim of natioal independence.

His patriotism had penetrated deeply in his total foundation of thought and practice, that we can compare as the rich solvent nursing and containing his life.  

By applying spiritual quintessence of Confucianism in combining with some progressive spritual values of Western thought in resolving national delemmas  of the age, through a particular manner of Vietnam (it was the spirit of synthesis, which depended on the support of patriotism), Phan Boi Chau constructed an excelllent Vietnamese nationalism in the early decades of the 20th century. It was a nationalism which consisted progressive values of the nation and humankind.

Looking back the history and comparing with present, can we come to conclusion that Phan Boi Chau’s nationalism contains many modern meanings?! r 

 (Translated by Hoang Thi Tho)